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October 16, 2007

Main Vari Vari

In 2005, Bollywood produced a historical film by the name of Mangal Pandey : The Rising. It refers to what the British historians (many of them til this day) called The Mutiny in 1857, but which in reality was a revolt against the opressive rule of the British Raj.

Well I haven't seen the movie myself so I can't really comment. But I did read about UK historians reacting to it. Then again that doesn't say very much seeing as much of indian history has been biasedly depicted through colonial eyes.

Can you give some links to the British historians you mention? I find it a bit simplistic to cast aside British historians' comments as being biased and colonial. I suspect that you'd find much more than knee-jerk reactions.

I can see people criticising the film as being historically inaccurate, but doubt you'd find much reactionary modern comment on the actual event itself.

Hey Exseno :) Good to see you here again. I haven't seen the movie either but who cares, the music rocks!

Hi redstar and welcome! :)

The biased british accounts of Indian history (in the past, thus affecting the future views to an extent) is something any professor of development and colonialism will attest to.

The book in question that made that clear is "Ideologies of the Raj" By Metcalf (a british man himself).

Since I haven't seen the movie I do not know to what they (the historians) reacted...my comment was more general concerning the actualy labelling of The mutiny as The mutiny when it was an entirely different thing in reality...

My comment was not on what they reacted to in the movie nor did I say all british historians are per se biased and colonial...but in general, history books today have been affected by history books in colonial times, which, without doubt, were highly biased and colonial with accounts of for example how "violent indian muslims were by nature" as opposed to "how passive and sneaky by nature the indian hindus were".

I do recommend the book, it's really interesting and helps one understand how The British Raj gained ground in India and how it maintained it and subsequently lost it.

The links to the particular historians should be on the link I gave in the blog post, under Mangal Pandey, the movie. Check it out, if you don't find anything I will try look again. I confess I only read the title saying roughly UK historians not ok with historical facts...

Fair enough :) I don't usually see sweeping statements on your excellent blog, so was surprised to see British historians misaligned somewhat. I expect you'll find a great deal of colonial history written in Britain today taking a much more revisionist angle.

I take your point on 'The Mutiny', but it's not entirely inaccurate to call it such - the uprising was kickstarted by a mutiny after all.

I really enjoyed watching Lagan, which features the same actor. The evil British officer is great, but I was a bit worried that all the British army officers would be portrayed in the same way. In the end though, without wishing to spoil it for you too much, the evil chap gets his just desserts and the his rather decent fellow officers stick the agreement in the best traditions of gentlemanly conduct and decency. Great fun.

Lagaan was a well made mivie, and its biggest bonus point was that it touched the heart of every desi (ie cricket and whipping the white man's ass). Whereas Frued can do his own take on that, despite the many inaccuracies in Lagaan, the movie was well made and entertaining.The music was excellent and cinematography breath taking.